


Not yet

by Minne_My



Category: Holby City
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Books, F/F, Melancholy, Premonition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-14 03:21:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28788654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minne_My/pseuds/Minne_My
Summary: Bernie reads Wicked
Relationships: Serena Campbell/Bernie Wolfe
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	Not yet

**Author's Note:**

> Quotes are from Gregory Maguire's books 'Wicked' and 'Son of a Witch'

Bernie wouldn't describe herself as an avid reader these days. Since she had the children, fiction had fallen by the wayside. She had enjoyed some of the classics but didn't know what was popular anymore and the one chick-lit book she'd read made her feel brain dead by the end of it. Occasionally she'd try a murder mystery and would like it well enough. So she picked up the _Wicked_ series from the car boot sale with trepidation. Several books, all corresponding to a fantasy world where nothing was ever as it seemed. She found it hard going at first. But as the story unfolded, the more the unlikeable, cruel Elphaba intrigued her. She thought that she'd flinch from the adulterous relationship between Elphaba and Fiyero and she should have done. Too personal. But despite all the bad luck and lamentation befalling Elphaba, she couldn't help but care about what happened to her. She was an abject failure in everything. Happiness was a brief chapter. It all sounded entirely miserable. But the feeling of being an outsider, that was what piqued Bernie's interest. Being _born_ _wrong_. There had been something wrong with her from the start, something that couldn't be changed. She should have been born a man. Bernie found it all too relatable. Time and time again she had been criticised for not being as a woman should; not maternal enough, too career driven, not soft enough. She had never been enough.

_An instant of sharp pain before the numbness. The world was floods above and fire below. If there was such a thing as a soul, the soul had gambled on a sort of baptism and had it won? The body apologises to the soul for its errors and the soul asks forgiveness for squatting in the body without invitation._

Well. It hadn't been quite like that, getting blown up in Afghanistan. But she couldn't stop reading the way that Elphaba's thoughts had swirled around as she started dying. It sounded all too familiar. In the days that followed, she'd been in that sort of state too. And it annoyed her that Elphaba had died, after all of that. What a crappy ending. She deserved more. Bernie tried to stop feeling annoyed and somewhat cheated that Elphaba had just been disposed of after a lifetime of misery.

_And there the wicked old witch stayed for a good long time._

_And did she ever come out?_

_Not yet._

Bernie snorted inelegantly. Too late for that now, thanks to a thoughtless gossiper and Serena's entrance in her life. She started on the next book unenthusiastically.

**_In her cell, Glinda woke up with a start. The lumbago was more punishing than the incarceration, but a sense of spring had filtered all the way down the open canyon roof of Southstairs, and she caught a whiff of freshness, of arrogant possibility. Her glasses had broken a year ago. She didn't need them anymore, not really. She knew who was turning the door handle of her cell. She called her name sleepily, and added, "You wicked thing. You've taken your own sweet time, of course —_ **

Glinda was dying. She must be. Elphaba must be coming back to collect her and cross the threshold together. Bernie was sure of it. She thought of Serena. Serena was no silly superficial piece of fluff like Glinda. But Bernie had always thought that she'd not live to see retirement, lived for the risk, despite knowing that her children would miss her if she bowed out early. She was sure to die before Serena. In her mind, it was Serena in that cell, stretching out her hand to Bernie and chiding her affectionately for her delay.

Bernie sighed. She knew it was ridiculous to take that to heart, considering that this was a fiction book and didn't reflect on her personal relationship. But she knew she wouldn't be able to unsee it anytime soon.


End file.
